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Chapter Eleven
Oz
The climate on Earth now changed like the direction of the wind. Or at least in our area. We heard rumors about other places but communications weren’t good. The rare snowstorms barged in, angry and bustling all over the place, and then they were gone; the only remnant of them was the melting snow that then froze on the ground. I’d slipped so many times, I was sure my muscles would ache from the stance I had to take not to fall flat on my face.
My thoughts were drawn more to negative than to positive, no matter how hard I fought against them. In fact, the more I forced myself to remember that my mate was somewhere waiting for me, that this treacherous journey wasn’t in vain, the more the doubt crept in, oozing into my conscious and distracting me even when my feet continued to move toward their destination.
I had a moment of fun while choosing to cross over a mountain that was really more of a hill, but it was a change of pace and gave me something to focus on other than my own issues.
The Cursor had become more and more faint as the nights went on. My heart and my wolf gave me some encouragement to go on, my wolf’s in the form of growls.
Then I fell to immeasurably silly depths. I picked up a rock that resembled a triangle. To me, there were two small indentations that resembled eyes and a little notch that formed the mouth. I stopped in my journey to pick up the rock and use some wet charcoal I came across to make those facial features more real.
I named him Jimmy.
Seemed to fit him.
I was losing my mind.
Along the day, Jimmy became my sounding board. I told him of my frustrations, of my hopes, of what I thought my mate might look like. It didn’t matter if we had things in common, though I prayed we did.
As the day drew on, the sun proved her power over and over in waves of heat and dryness that made my thirst kick up to proportions I didn’t know were possible. I was not making the pace I wanted to, slowing down moment by moment. No one traveled during the day, and I was understanding why.
It’s time for the wolf to take over.
My wolf called himself The Wolf. No one knew that about me, and I kept it that way. The beast had an ego the size of a large former-European nation.
I sighed and fell to my knees. He wasn’t wrong. It was time. His stamina not only for running longer distances, but for enduring the ever-changing weather trumped mine. Plus, my human psyche could rest a bit as strange as that seemed. His energy stores would outlast mine and when my wolf took over, there was no thinking. There was just doing. Moving. Progressing. Running toward the target.
“Fine,” I answered and made the preparations. There was no one around, so I stripped off all my clothes, making sure that Jimmy was safe in a side pocket. It was a relief to give in to the wolf, letting him take over fully.
He picked up my backpack in his mouth and took off without hesitation or even consulting me and my knowledge of the maps. He would rely on the stars, yes, but moreover, he would be zoned in on his instinct.
Honestly, it was my ego that hadn’t allowed him to take over thus far.
My wolf knew where his mate was.
We ran until the day turned to night. I thought he would stop and rest, but I couldn’t have been more wrong. Instead, he found a melted puddle where ice had once been. He lapped at the cool water until he was satisfied and lay in what was left, cooling our belly and catching his breath.
I’m not done. She’s there. Waiting for us. Needing us.
Waiting for us? Needing us? That was a different perspective. Clearly my wolf was picking up on something that I couldn’t.
He rested until the moon was fully visible in the sky. Through the lens of his vision, I could see the stars, waning night by night.
No more waiting. Let’s go.
He picked up the pack in his teeth again and made haste toward his goal. He ran and ran while my consciousness rested within him. There was a trust between us. After all, if something happened to him, it would happen to me. Mutual honor and trust came naturally between a shifter man and his beast. My father claimed there were those who lived at odds with their animal, but I couldn’t imagine that life.
As dawn turned into day, his energy lessened, but he stayed the course until finally the sun robbed him of what little he had left. He found a dugout in the dirt and rested there, insisting he would go the rest of the way to our mate.
I didn’t have the gumption or the energy to argue.
